9-1-1, What's your emergency?

"Our house is filled with smoke!!!" Yes, folks. That was me at about 4:00 today.
The boys and I had just arrived home from our usual afternoon walk. We were gone for about an hour, walked into the back door, and were greeted with thick, white smoke. Looked like a scene out of the movies - couldn't see much of anything.

I quickly ushered the boys and the dogs outside, set Xavier in the grass, told Ben to stay put, and ran back into the house, locking the door behind me so Ben wouldn't follow. Ran from room to room to see if I could find the source. It was hard to see, there was smoke on both levels of our house. I couldn't see anything that was obviously on fire, but knew I needed to get out of there fast. I stood in the kitchen for a couple of seconds and thought, "this is it. what do I save? We're going to lose everything." I grabbed my car keys, my laptop with all our pictures on it, and the phone and dashed outside.

Called 9-1-1. Neighbors ran into the house looking for the fire too, with no luck. God bless our volunteer firefighters, they were here quickly, with an awesome response time of about 5 minutes. I was trying to get Nick on his cell...all sorts of thoughts going through my head - where will we live? what will we do?! we're just finishing up the kitchen, and now this? what special, irreplacable memories are we going to lose? I'll never forget Benny looking at me, saying, "Mommy, what the matter? Why there smoke in the house? Mommy, don't cry!!" (I was...hard not to at that point.)

The fire fighters opened windows and used a giant gas powered fan to ventilate the house. Smoke was billowing out of the windows. Truly scary.

The culprit? A fire on our cooktop. A 3 ring binder had been sitting next to it, got bumped, and somehow turned on the burner (very low) and landed with an edge on the burner. Probably happened when I was cleaning in that area right before we left. Thank God we came back when we did. Or we could have lost everything. No, we were very, very lucky. Now everything just stinks like smoldering plastic. We can deal with that.

To the rescue! Ben was absolutely beside himself with excitement - firemen at his house! He ran over and picked up someone's helmet and respirator mask that had been left unattended and put them on. He followed them around like a little puppy outside (this was after the initial flurry of activity had died down). He gave out lots of hi-5's.


Xavier was relaxing with Nick's mom (she came after I called her, immediately after my 9-1-1 call). You know what I find pretty miraculous? Xavier is terrified of sirens, whether they're loud, or if you can barely hear them, he turns bright red and screams uncontrollably. None of that today, even though they were very close and loud...its as if he knew they were coming to help us this time. And that was ok with him.

So the damage was very minimal, considering the amount of smoke the smoldering/fire caused. The cooktop (which has a life expectancy of approximately 1 week due to the remodel) was the only thing damaged. The blue thing on the burner was a wheel off of Xavier's toy truck that had been sitting on top of the binder.


Hope this wasn't important...unopened mail :)

Trick or Treat!

After the drama of this afternoon, our pleasant evening spent doing the traditional Halloween activities was welcomed!

The boys were pirates, although their costumes were much 'abbreviated' due to the rushed nature of our evening, Benny's insistance that he was done being a pirate (after the party on Friday and today at school I guess he'd had enough)...and, most importantly, their mother's stress level.

Xavier loves trick or treat. He claps his hands and blows raspberries when a group of kids comes up.

Ben ate about 10 lollipops, helped kids pick out which candy or color of playdoh (also gave that out) they wanted. He would say, "Trick or Treat! Have fun!!" Nick tried to get him to go door to door with him, but he was having way too much fun giving out the candy, he did not want to leave!

So all in all the evening was enjoyable, the kids had a blast, and our house is still standing. Not a bad day.


X and B checking out their pirate treasure!



Some excellent standing by Xavier tonight!

Our two pumpkins (and their pumpkins ;)

Tonight we used Mr. Potato Head parts to decorate pumpkins. Both boys' pumpkins have very fitting attire - Benny's is a ninja...and Xavier's is an angel. :)

The concerned look on Nick's face is because the parts were SO hard to push in!

Xavier adjusted his angel wing.


Here they are, proud of the finished product!

Still playing outside!

Even though its chilly outside, the boys and I still try to get out to play every day (unless its pouring down rain...) Here's a few photos from our time outside today:

Ben is always trying to get Ruby to carry a stick. This is something that delights them both.




Catching a bubble - this is probably the best action shot I've ever taken! If you can't see it, the bubble is between Ben's hands!




Ben comes up with new ways to ride his glider every day.

Halloween Party!

Tonight our friends threw a big Halloween party, complete with fog machine, strobe lights, spooky music, and fun games! Ben had a blast, we lost him several times in the crowd, which was a little unnerving...but overall, the night was a fun one.

Xavier was definitely a bit out of sorts today. Probably because Ben hasn't allowed him to take a nap all week. Ben is done napping, much to my dismay. Anyway, Xavier was so cranky, he spent the evening with Gma and Gpa P. He would not have at all appreciated the noise level, darkness, and flashing lights...so we made a good choice on that one.

Ben the pirate (look next week for both boys in their pirate attire):


Me the mummy - the kids divided into teams and wrapped an adult with toilet paper. Here I am, getting all wrapped up:


The rain made for a bit of a mess with the toilet paper, but it was worth it...we won!


Bennett in all his messy t-p glory! Notice 3/4 of his costume is gone. Never expect a three year old to keep anything on for too long, I guess. :)

School, October 15 - 25

More pumpkin art - tis the season! The top pumpkin was done by Xavier - beautiful mixture of fall colors! And below is Ben's a 'copying' project. His teacher painted the pumpkin on the left and Ben copied it on the right.


The boys each made a fill-in-the-blank book about apples. Xavier's is shown below, saying that applesauce is his favorite yummy apple treat. (very true! although the boy hasn't met an apple pie he didn't like either!) Ben's pumpkin book helps him understand "location" words, like under/above etc. Ben also did his rendition of a rotten apple in the bottom picture.


School is very enjoyable for the boys. For the last two weeks, they have been learning about apples and pumpkins...how they grow, what they are used for, etc. Last week the class made applesauce! This week, as their teacher put it, their class pumpkin "got a lot of mileage." Carving, floating experiments, seed cooking and eating, and finally today, putting it to rest by pounding golf tees into it. Ben reportedly was very fond of the last activity. ;)

Gait trainer update

Besides providing Ben with a fun mode of transport about our house, the gait trainer is really getting good use. Xavier loves being in it and does well with 'walking' and standing in it. Here's a couple new shots of him from this afternoon: